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Latest News
G7 pledges support for nuclear at Italy meeting
The Group of Seven (G7) recommitted its support for nuclear energy in the countries that opt to use it at a Ministerial Meeting on Climate in Italy last month.
In a statement following the April meeting, the group committed to support multilateral efforts to strengthen the resilience of nuclear supply chains, referencing the goal set by 25 countries during last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
Tyler R. Steiner, Richard H. Howard
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 11 | November 2022 | Pages 1745-1755
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2072652
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A high-temperature, steady-state, in-pile experiment was developed to simulate prototypical nuclear thermal propulsion conditions. The experimental development of the resistively heated test apparatus involved spatially scaling the device to a larger heated region from a previous smaller out-of-pile prototype. A series of tests and investigations were conducted to replicate the smaller out-of-pile system’s success of achieving 2500 K. However, limitations within the larger assembly were identified; specifically, the heater filament design does not scale well. The larger assembly can reliably generate usable temperature levels from room temperature up to those exceeding 1300 K for hours. It can briefly sustain a usable 1800 K. The larger system is achieving temperatures over 2500 K, but these are localized and unable to be monitored in the current design. The achieved temperature levels remain suitable for testing various components considered for a nuclear thermal rocket. However, due to the limitations of the current heater filament, it is recommended that the apparatus be redesigned to utilize a rigid heating element similar to that used during the Radioisotope Propulsion Technology Program (Project POODLE) in the 1960s.